»Genesis« New Kilchoman Series for Germany announced

The German Kilchoman importer Hanseatische Weinhandelsgesellschaft Bremen has announced a new Kilchoman range, developed exclusively for the German market.

The Genesis series is intended to trace the production of Kilchoman whisky “from barley to bottle”. The eight stages of the journey, which takes at least 1130 days (as Kilchoman founder Anthony Wills puts it), from the harvesting of the barley, malting, peating, mashing, fermenting, distilling, maturing to bottling, are each to be addressed by a separate bottling, thus honouring the traditions of a farm distillery.

The bottle design of the new series is very appealing and the packaging is not the standard Kilchoman cardboard box but the sturdy hinged box that is already known from some Kilchoman special bottlings.

The first bottling of the series “Harvest – Stage 1”, which is to be released in a few days, is dedicated to the harvest of the barley, i.e. days 1-5. Kilchoman grows about 200 tonnes of barley each year in the surrounding fields of Rockside Farm. As soon as the 50,000 geese that winter on Islay every year have left the island in spring, the sowing takes place, and harvesting takes place at the beginning of September.

The Genesis Harvest – Stage 1 is a small batch release with 70% bourbon, 10% oloroso sherry and 20% PX sherry casks, i.e. practically the Germany Small Batch No. 2. The basis of the Small Batch Series for Selected Markets introduced in summer 2019 is, to put it simply, a Machir Bay vatting with 46% alcohol, to which another special type of cask is then added. In this case, Pedro Ximénez Hogsheads, which contained 100% Islay whisky made from the farm’s own barley. This mixing of its two differently peated production lines, completely unusual for Kilchoman (Machir Bay is, after all, made from bought-in Port Ellen malt to Ardbeg phenol specifications), was certainly necessary to do justice to the bottling’s theme – the barley harvest.

The alcohol content of the bottling is 48.6%, the edition 3,600 bottles (i.e. considerably more than usual for small batch releases).

Upcoming bottlings in the series are also expected to be Small Batch bottlings, the frequency of release is not yet known.